Teva bolsters CNS offering with $3.5bn Auspex buy

Israel's Teva Pharmaceutical Industries is buying US neurology group Auspex Pharmaceuticals for $3.5 billion, in a bid to ramp up its central nervous system franchise.

The generic drugs giant said it will buy all outstanding shares in Auspex for $101 each, representing a total consideration of around $3.2 billion in enterprise value and $3.5 billion in equity value.

The transaction is expected to boost Teva’s revenue and earnings growth profile and strengthen its core central nervous system portfolio with the addition of Auspex’s batch of innovative medicines for people who live with movement disorders.

Its lead investigational product SD-809 (deutetrabenazine) is being developed for the potential treatment of chorea associated with Huntington’s disease, tardive dyskinesia, and Tourette syndrome. The firm is expecting to a US launch for Huntington’s sometime in 2016, if regulatory approval is granted.

The deal is expected to be accretive to Teva’s non-GAAP EPS beginning in 2017 with minimal dilution that in the second half of 2015 and 2016.